For the First Time, Women Outnumber Men in a UC-Berkeley Computer Science Course

For the first time since Berkeley started digitizing enrollment records in 1993, there are more women than men in an undergraduate introductory computer science course: 106 women, 104 men. That's great.

The numbers from Berkley are heartening, though, because the school is a major recruiting ground for Silicon Valley companies. They may also suggest that adapting the curricula of introductory computer science courses can help to attract more women to the field. The Berkeley class is for nonmajors, and professor Dan Garcia, who taught the class last spring, told SFGate in an email that the course structure has undergone major changes, including emphasizing group projects and creative thinking. "Everything that turns women off, we reversed it," Garcia said.

Not exactly the most nuanced approach to curriculum design, perhaps. Then again, the numbers suggest they're doing at least something right.